Our garage in Hartlepool was a depository for all sorts; bikes, lawn mowers, ladders, bits of wood, paint tins (full and part empty), garden chairs, boxes of screws.... oh and a car. Occasionally. I was always amazed that it managed to fit into the space as the other contents slowly crept toward the centre.
The garage was also, again occasionally, my refuge from the rain after school. As well as my sister and I both bring pupils, both my Mam and Dad were teachers; we all had timetables to follow I suppose! This was great because it meant that we all knew exactly when we would arrive home and this allowed everything to run like clock work. Usually. Every now and again it would come undone and I would find myself being the first one home - I forget the reasons but probably due to one of my parents being held up at school. Either not having keys, or forgetting them, resulted in me having to break into the garage and sit on one of the garden chairs until someone else got home. Breaking into the garage was child's play - it was just a case of bending the flimsy bolts until they became free of their housing. I wasn't about to become a safe cracker or anything.
I thought it was great sitting it out in the garage; sort of like a mini adventure. Which is ironic because we had a mini at the time. In amongst the various wall decorations and the like was a piece of graffiti. Or art? Nah, definitely graffiti. You see my Dad, being a music nut, had recently bought the debut album by the Tom Robinson Band (TRB) and it came with a stencil so you could recreate the album art. Now most people would chuckle at this and put it back in the sleeve. But instead we had a silver spray painted stencil of the album emblazoned on the wall - just above the ladder.
I had no idea who TRB was but the image of a clenched fist always pops into my mind when I think about garages. And Grey Cortinas, which we didn't have.
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